Pirate Party compared to Nick Griffin

Over at the Guardian, Helienne Lindvall compares the Pirate Party with Nick Griffin:

Nick Griffin wasn’t the only one to stir up controversy this week. Sweden’s Pirate party were in Manchester to debate their ultra-laissez-faire ideas on copyright

Nick Griffin isn’t the only controversial party leader to head into a debate this week. This past Sunday I was on a panel debating with Rick Falkvinge, the leader of the Swedish Pirate party. The event was part of the In the City music conference in Manchester, and with me on the panel were Jon Webster (chief executive of the Music Managers Forum), Paul Saunders (ISP Playlouder), Patrick Rackow (CEO of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors) and Andrew Orlowski (the Register).

As with Griffin, many people didn’t agree with Falkvinge being included in the debate, nor getting a platform to peddle his agenda. Though I believe in free speech and problem solving by engaging in dialogue, I admit that the difficulty in challenging extremist views is that you have to come way over to their side of the pitch.

Which is a bit over the top. Are 7.13% of Swedish voters extremists? If copyright maximalists stood against us at elections, I bet we’d get more votes than them.